Fleetwood Mac Historical Controversy

Soundstage on PBS has recently shown a 2 part concert from Stevie Nicks. For no apparent reason this started me thinking about old Stevie songs and old Fleetwood Mac and reading about some of their history. I ran across a bit about the controversy on the Rumours album, where Stevie Nicks really wanted the song “Silver Springs” on the album but it was long, so it was cut in favor of “I Don’t Want to Know.”

I just sat down and listened to both songs, and I’d have to agree with Ms. Nicks. As good an album Rumours is, in the alternate world where they made the decision differently it would have been an even better album. Although they put it on the CD reissue 20+ years later, I would argue that if “Silver Springs” had been on the original album it would have been my favorite song on there. In fact, I’ll go on a limb and argue it as the single strongest Stevie Nicks composition I’ve ever heard.

There is not really any importance to refighting 33 year old arguments, but I’d say from my perspective time has proven Nicks right.

One Reply to “Fleetwood Mac Historical Controversy”

Dave, have you ever listened to the Buckingham Nicks album from 1973? In my view it’s at least as good as Rumours! Amazingly it remains unavailable on CD, but links to very good quality vinyl rips are floating around on the Bittorrent sites. There are also clips of it on YouTube.